


Knuckles

by innie



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, busted by my own dumbness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28662435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/pseuds/innie
Summary: How Maze and Trixie came up with their secret handshake (as seen in 3x03, "Mr. and Mrs. Mazikeen Smith").
Relationships: Trixie Espinoza & Mazikeen
Comments: 12
Kudos: 33





	Knuckles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [victoria_p (musesfool)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/gifts).



> A little gift for victoria_p (musesfool), who cottoned on that it was I — yes, I! — who wrote her JOSHUA LIVES! Yuletide treat.

"Play with me?"

The voice is unmistakable, even if she knows its owner was supposed to have fallen asleep hours ago. Decker and her dumb rules. Why can't the kid just conk out when she drops from fatigue, no muss no fuss? It's like Decker's trying to measure Trix for her own tiny set of granny panties. "Play what?" 

Trixie gives a small, sad shrug, like she knows better than to suggest anything noisy. Maze considers. _She_ doesn't have a bedtime, and technically the small human went to bed on time. It's just that she's awake now, at three in the morning. "Nightmare?" she asks, and there's that taut, telltale stillness in those little shoulders. Trixie knows that she and Decker and Lucifer all survived that dirty cop, but that fear sometimes still comes back to bite her. Maze would bite back if things worked that way.

"Something quick and quiet or your mom'll be up my ass for the rest of the week." She doesn't need to add _and not in the fun way_ because the little human's well aware of her mother's legendary power to suck the fun out of _anything_. 

"Have you ever played pattycake?" Trixie asks after a moment of solemn nodding to those stipulations.

"No," she says, but she likes the sound of cake. She didn't see any in the kitchen earlier.

"It's like this," the kid explains, doing something that looks like a cross between swimming — no thanks — and shadowboxing — a waste of time, because there's _always_ someone in need of a beatdown out there. "We do it together but opposite." Trixie turns one of her hands over so her palms slap lightly together and picks up speed. The fiercely clawed kittens on the pajamas she's outgrowing are kind of a blur.

It looks like a dexterity drill and Maze grins. Doesn't matter what Decker says, Trix is more than ready for her first set of knives. The kid holds her hands up and Maze mirrors her, only to ball her hands into fists when the chanting starts. "There's _singing_ in this? Maze out." Singing and no actual cake, what a rip.

"We can make up our own," Trixie says, throwing her one of those completely unfair looks that somehow makes Maze feel a tug at her insides. Lucifer only wishes he had a look like that.

Right. The little human needs to feel strong, and Maze has nothing to prove to anyone. "Knuckles," she snaps in an imperious tone and Trixie smiles. The size difference between their fists is the same as that between her own and Lucifer's; it's a work of infernal engineering that a body as small as Trix's can house so much mischief and might. 

They stack fists in two configurations, then bump them together. Brisk and befitting a pair of warriors. Do it at full speed often enough and the kid might even gain calluses that wouldn't get her laughed out of hell. They stack and bump again, and again, and Trixie's grin is getting wider and wider.

The kid's knuckles are getting pink from the repeated impact, and Maze is about to call a halt, but that's when Trixie shakes it up. After the bump she draws back like she's nocking an arrow to her bowstring but twisting too like a whip might be involved somehow; she's full of good ideas. And then she turns back, her sleep-tangled hair flying out like a little cloud around her skull, and draws a thumbnail — still wearing its skull-and-crossbones sticker — across her little throat and lets her tongue loll gruesomely out of her mouth.

Seriously, there are demons she could name who'd benefit from taking notes. Maze grunts her approval of the new ending of this solemn rite and enacts it once all the way through. And once more when she carries Trixie back to bed and gets her under her galaxy blanket. Lucifer really needs to be smacked upside the head for his take on subtlety. "Goodnight, Maze," Trixie whispers.

She's heard Decker say shit like "Sweet dreams" and "Night-night," but it'll be a hot night in Chloe's bed before she says any of that to the kid. She draws her thumbnail across her own throat and says, "You made it, he didn't."

The kid's grin is like looking into a mirror. " _Yeah_ ," Trixie says and flops down to make a dent in her pillow, and Maze turns out the light and closes the door.


End file.
